Columns
p.36 Keep Power-Line Pollution Out of Your Computer
[author Steve Ciarcia]
When lightning struck his home and did $3000 worth of damage, Ciarcia decided to strike back with this month's Circuit Cellar project
p.48 BYTE West Coast: Microsoft Windows
[author Phil Lemmons]
Microsoft Windows lets you test the effectiveness of the desktop metaphor and the mouse.
p.59 User's Column: Buddy, Can You Spare a Door Latch?
[author Jerry Pournelle]
What to do when your disk-drive door is on the fritz and other comedies of errors at Chaos Manor.
Themes
p.100 Easy Software
[author Phil Lemmons]
Making software easy to use is simpler to say than to do. This month's theme articles explore a variety of approaches to user-interface technology and sample programmers' attempts at making software do more with less effort
p.103 An Introduction to Integrated Software
[author Dash Chang]
Concurrency, shared technology, and functional integration are three ways of integrating software.
p.113 Presentation and Form in User-Interface Architecture
[author John M. Carroll]
With the help of a test group, the author and his colleagues developed an interface that facilitates ease of use and ease of learning.
p.127 Why Is Software So Hard to Use?
[author Sam Edwards]
Chances are it's the software's fault and not yours.
p.143 Walt Disney and User-Oriented Software
[author Paul Heckel]
Software designers can learn a few things from Mickey Mouse about communicating ideas.
p.155 Making Life Easier for Professional and Novice Programmers
[author Andy Pope, Geoff Kates, and Dan Fineberg]
A debugger that "animates" the program's source code on the screen and lets the programmer engage in what-if analysis to find logic errors can drastically reduce debugging time.
p.161 Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
[author Martin Dean]
In an attempt to design a truly easy-to-use database manager, the author disregarded nifty features and clever, complex functions in favor of starting fresh .
p.177 Integrating Voice in the Office World
[author Robert T. Nicholson]
The ability to record a spoken message and store it digitally on a computer system makes possible a whole new range of applications.
p.189 The Starburst User Interface
[author Steven Vandor]
This software package helps you build efficient, powerful menus.
p.199 The Complete Information-Management System
[author Michael J. Brown]
The ideal information-management package maximizes hardware attributes and minimizes user interaction.
p.210 The Allegory of Software
[author Tom Houston]
Tired of the same old desktop metaphor? Maybe the digital kitchen is more up your alley
p.218 The New Interface Technology
[author Robert W. Warfield and George M. White]
A close-up look at mice, windows, and other software and hardware developments that make computer systems easier to use.
p.234 Trackball Interfacing Techniques for Microprocessors
[author Edward W Andrews]
This simple hardware/software interface device is easy to adapt to your interactive personal computer application s.
p.247 The User Interface: Two Approaches
[author Martin Herbach, Richard Katz, and Joseph Landau]
The philosophical vs. the pragmatic approach to the construction of an efficient user interface.
p.263 The Future of Metaphor in Man-Computer Systems
[author Chuck Clanton]
Learnability is the single most important concern in user-interface design.
Reviews
p.282 Reviewer's Notebook
[author Rich Malloy]
BYTE's product-review editor comments on products slated for review.
p.286 The Texas Instruments Professional Computer
[author Mark Haas]
Based on Intel's 8088 16-bit chip, TI's Professional Computer is the Data Systems Group's entry into the personal computer arena.
p.329 The ATR8000
[author Dave Small and Sandy Small]
With SWP's Z80 computer, Atari users can run CP/M-based programs.
p.343 The Hercules Graphics Card
[author Tom Wadlow]
lf you want crisp, attractive text as well as graphics on the IBM Pc, the Hercules Graphics Card is for you.
p.360 The Wang Professional Computer
[author Elaine Long]
This 16-bit microcomputer provides an easy-to-use word-processing program with sophisticated features.
p.372 In Search of the Most Amazing Thing
[author Elaine Holden]
This adventure game for the IBM PC, Apple, Atari, and Commodore 64 offers you an entire world to explore in your quest for a hidden Object.
Features
p.380 Color Graphics from Any Computer
[author Frederick B. Essig]
How to make highquality full-color graphics from your black-and-white monitor.
p.400 Mainframe to Micro: Adapting a Financial-Modeling Language
[author Greg Dunn]
As the microcomputer moves into the office, software developers face new challenges in translating existing mainframe software to the microcomputer environment.
p.417 POKEing Around in the IBM PC, Part 2: Subroutines for the BIOS Interface and Screen-Display Disk Storage
[author Hugh R. Howson]
In this final article, the author develops a general-purpose BIOS-interface subroutine that can transfer parameters from a BASIC program to the BIOS and can store BIOS results in memory.
p.443 The CMOS 6502
[author Steven Hendrix]
Rockwell's CMOS version of the 6502 microprocessor fills a number of gaps in the standard 6502's instruction set and offers low power-consumption advantages.
p.457 A Tiger Meets a Dragon
Dan Rollins
A look at dragon-curve designs and how to print them on an IDS Paper Tiger printer.
p.481 A Computer-Algebra-Based Calculating System
[author Stuart Edwards]
By performing automatic unit conversion, this super-calculator saves time and effort and prevents common errors.
p.519 The User Looks at Books
[author Jerry Pournelle]
Jerry takes time out to round up the best and worst books on CP/M, Pascal, C, and Ada.
Nucleus
p.4 Editorial: Christmas in Chapter XI
p.7 MICROBYTES
p.11 Letters
p.358, 594 BYTE's Bits IBM Announces the PCjr; Two New Office Products from IBM
p.499 User to User
p.530 Software Received
p.546 Clubs and Newsletters
p.550 Books Received
p.554 Ask BYTE
p.568 Event Queue
p.574 What's New?
p.596, 598 Book Reviews: Electronically Speaking: Computer Speech Generation; Mastering CP/M
p.653 Unclassified Ads
p.654 BYTE 's Ongoing Monitor Box, BOMB Results
p.655 Reader Service

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